New research suggests that Earth's first crust, formed over 4.5 billion years ago, already carried the chemical traits we ...

Earth’s earliest crust, formed over 4.5 billion years ago, has long been thought to have lacked the complex chemical features ...

Scientists discovered Earth's first crust had continental chemical signatures. This challenges beliefs about when these ...

It’s long been thought that tectonic plates needed to dive beneath each other to create the chemical fingerprint we see in ...

Beneath the turquoise waters of the South Pacific hides a massive secret—Zealandia, a sunken landmass stretching nearly two ...

Deep beneath the surface of our planet, from the Himalayas to East Africa and from the Atlantic seafloor to the Indian Ocean, ...

These early collisions formed mile-wide objects called ... setting the stage for life. Plate tectonics, the movement of Earth’s crustal plates, emerged from this tumultuous period.

New research reveals a surprising link between the ancient tectonic history of oceanic plates and their fate as they subduct ...

Even the oldest and most stable of lithospheric structures can’t withstand geologic machinations deep within the Earth.